GFAP IFs like an IF-associated protein rather than like a polymerization partner, whereas the opposite was true for synemin interaction with vimentin. In transfection experiments, synemin did not incorporate into normal, filamentous GFAP networks, but integrated into vimentin and GFAP heteropolymeric networks. Thus, alongside GFAP, vimentin and nestin, reactive astrocytes contain synemin, whose accumulation is suppressed posttranscriptionally in the absence of a polymerization partner. In astrocytes, this partner is vimentin and not GFAP, which implies a functional difference between these two type III IF proteins.
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